Solo Sensali Feather Farmer

Hi all

Given the current high price of feathers and their usefulness in crafting Essence of Celerity I wanted to farm my own with my favorite character, the trusty monk.

This build works fine in Normal Mode against the sensali mobs in the Jaya Bluffs map found on the starter island in Factions. In 'Hard Mode' the sensali necros also carry [[Wail of Doom] which renders this useless. (*Wail of Doom now sets your attribs to 0 for a few seconds, not as the skill is described here on GWGuru).

[build=MoN Solo Sensali Feather Farmer;OwQTc4HDH6ualoeogwtkNQeQfAA]

Attributes
Curses 12
Divine Favor 3 + 3
Protection Prayers 12 + 1 + 3
Asura Rank 0+ (Higher ranks will farm quicker)

Armor
105hp is required for this, so 5 superior runes need to be applied to any AL armor. The headpiece must have the additional +1 prot bonus and needs a superior prot rune as well. At least one other piece should have a Sup Divine Rune on it.

Weapon
+20% enchanting is essential. The ideal weapon would be Kepkhet's Refuge.

Usage

Leave Seitung Harbor and cast [[Balthazar's Spirit] and [[Essence Bond]. Don't worry too much about regen of your energy as you only need 30 to start a fight and it will then regenerate faster than you need.

1) Aggro a single mob of Sensali and cast Prot Spirit, SoA, and SoR
2) Tank out the duration of SoA and cast SH as SoA finishes
3) Cast Radiation Field and Suffering. Step (2) should have left enough time for the entire mob to come adjacent to you. Try not to cast Suffering until all foes are that close for most efficient use.
4) Cast Radiation field on recharge.

All the time ensure that Prot Spirit and SoR are up. Also ensure that there is no break in cover from the alternating use of SoA and SH. The only thing you can slip on is SoR because it is likely you will see your health degen and have enough time to re-cast it.

Players with a low asura rank may need to cast Radiation Field as many as 3 times during a skirmish but Suffering should only need the one cast regardless.

Counters
The only skill the Sensali have worth worrying about is [[Enfeebling Touch] which steals 41hp. This means that only 1 mob at a time can be farmed or there will be 3+ Necros which will overpower your hp regen. Feel free to spam Prot Spirit and SoR to gain the divine healing benefit if necessary (e.g. 2 life steals close together).

Annoyances
Yetis. They will fight the sensali, depriving you of your drops, grrr

Route
See the attached pic for the route. This passes a handy res shrine that makes it less painful to return to where you died (if you died). I find this allows for a smooth run without much waiting around for yetis to die after the initial mob. It does skip 1 mob near Gull Hookbeak and Yorrt Strongjaw if it spawns unfavorably amongst yeti mobs.

Result
120-200 feathers per run, often 1 gold item, sometimes 2, will drop along with a handful of armors with runes. 1 run typically yields enough feathers to craft 3 Essences of Celerity.


Final note
This is my first build that I have posted and only because I could not see anything similar on here or PvXwiki. I appreciate that there may be ways to improve this build and I would like to hear suggestions and informed criticism. Apart from that, I hope you find this as useful a I have.

Edit: I am seeing 3 Sensali Darkfeathers in spawns now, so do not recommend you use this build. Please refer to the superior builds posted further in this thread.

[Vipers Defense] is much better than [Suffering], is it not?

Good idea.

At 12 Shadow arts, Viper's Defense would do 136 damage in total over 17 seconds (17secs x (4 degen x 2)) (each pip = 2hp per sec).
Suffering inflicts a total of 150 damage (25 x (3 x 2)) but only 102 of that is done over the duration that the poison would have been in effect.

I have tried it since you suggested it, and found...

Pros: The combined effect does degen them quicker (very nearly kills them at r7 asura if the they remain in RF).
Cons: The shadow-step takes you out of the Radiation Field and so reduces the effectiveness of that and can inadvertantly aggro nearby Yetis or other Sensali mobs. Trying to get back into the Radiation Field is hampered by being hit with [[Crippling Dagger].

I say that Suffering is more consistent and less troublesome. Radiation Field is the biggest damage dealer so you don't want to leave it.

Edit: The full effect of RF can be achieved by waiting for the initial degen period (before disease starts) before hitting Viper's Defense, but the random nature of the jump still does not make me happy enough to use.